A Quote by Alexander Pope

Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise. By mountains pil'd on mountains to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
Before practicing meditation, we see that mountains are mountains. When we start to practice, we see that mountains are no longer mountains. After practicing a while, we see that mountains are again mountains. Now the mountains are very free. Our mind is still with the mountains, but it is no longer bound to anything.
Oh! lovely voices of the sky Which hymned the Saviour's birth, Are ye not singing still on high, Ye that sang, "Peace on earth"?
There was a windstorm in L.A., and the morning after there was no smog, and I could see the mountains. And I was like... 'There's mountains? Snowcap mountains?' That's insane; I've been there for thirteen years, and I've never seen that view before, seeing the mountains in the distance.
The famous Zen parable about the master for whom, before his studies, mountains were only mountains, but during his studies mountains were no longer mountains, and afterward mountains were again mountains could be interpreted as an alleory about [the perpetual paradox that when one is closest to a destination one is also the farthest).
One felt that the mountains are not completed. The builders are still at work. Stones come rolling and jumping from the upper scaffolding and often from the chasms one hears the thundering as the gods of the mountains change their minds.
An ancient buddha said, “Mountains are mountains; waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.
We get letters every day from people wanting more mountains. As many as I paint, they still say, 'Give me more mountains.'
Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.
Therefore am I still a lover of the meadows and the woods, and mountains; and of all that we behold from this green earth.
I thought how utterly we have forsaken the Earth, in the sense of excluding it from our thoughts. There are but few who consider its physical hugeness, its rough enormity. It is still a disparate monstrosity, full of solitudes, barrens, wilds. It still dwarfs, terrifies, crushes. The rivers still roar, the mountains still crash, the winds still shatter. Man is an affair of cities. His gardens, orchards and fields are mere scrapings. Somehow, however, he has managed to shut out the face of the giant from his windows. But the giant is there, nevertheless.
Ninety per cent of the tourists climbing big mountains are on 10 mountains - and one million mountains in the world are empty.
These are thy glorious works Parent of Good, Almighty, thine this universal Frame, Thus wondrous fair; thy self how wondrous then! Unspeakable, who sitst above these Heavens To us invisible or dimly seen In these thy lowest works, yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine: Speak ye who best can tell, ye Sons of light, Angels, for ye behold him, and with songs And choral symphonies, Day without Night, Circle his Throne rejoicing, ye in Heav'n, On Earth join all ye Creatures to extoll Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Because mountains are high and broad, the way of riding the clouds is always reached in the mountains; the inconceivable power of soaring in the wind comes freely from the mountains
Ye poor posterity, think not that ye are the first. Other fools before ye have seen the sun rise and set, and the moon change her shape and her hour. As they were so ye are; and yet not so great; for the pyramids my people built stand to this day; whilst the dustheaps on which ye slave, and which ye call empires, scatter in the wind even as ye pile your dead sons' bodies on them to make yet more dust.
The secret of the mountain is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no "meaning," they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share. I understand all this, not in my mind but in my heart, knowing how meaningless it is to try to capture what cannot be expressed, knowing that mere words will remain when I read it all again, another day.
Oh land of farms and green hills mild Once formed by giants rough and wild With massive paws they gripped and tore With one great rip they formed the shore Where heavy boots left prints so deep Blue lakes remain 'tween summits steep The giants fought beneath our skies And from their bones our mountains rise
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